As the first, brilliant rays of the sun peaked over the alien horizon, the sky grew black as death, the dimming stars preparing for their king. He loved to sit and watch the morning come, and daily was found lounging in his wicker chair, his orange space suit melting into the scenery as the desert was gradually unveiled in the growing light.
Behind him the station sat, half buried in sand, its denizens begrudgingly preparing for the day. Its white exterior was like some fantastic sepulcher, a long hidden fragment of a giant’s skull which at sundry times the gentle winds had covered with the desert but now worked to reveal. Inside they all fought for a moment of hot water to shower in, and subsequently none had anything more than a lukewarm morning.
He, however, had a very cold morning upon the alien world, for his suit, yet thickly made, could not keep out the indomitable frost of this barren world’s night. He shivered pleasant shivers as the sun rose, its heat, though such would seem paltry to those inside, was nevertheless such a wonderful change from the cold that it seemed the richest and most pleasant warmth to him.
In all, he suffered a greater cold and in turn received a much prized warmth, not out of any striving of his own, but out of the natural turning of the sphere. Inside was great travail in a morning, and though the heat those denizens fought for was greater than his—that is, when scientifically measured by degrees—they could only count it lukewarm.
Tale Told 